


Thanksgiving Dinner

by orphan_account



Category: Watchmen
Genre: 1000-3000 words, F/M, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan hates spending Thanksgivings at Sally's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanksgiving Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> A friend and I had a discussion about how you could make Dan/Sally work, and I ended up writing it just to show it was possible.

Dan had come to hate Thanksgivings.

It used to be such a benign holiday. A little turkey—well, okay, in Dan's case it was usually a lot of turkey—some good company where he could find it, and an early night. Once, he had spent it with Rorschach, which was bizarre. Dan still wasn't entirely sure if Rorschach had known it was Thanksgiving, since he hadn't mentioned it. He'd just dropped in unexpectedly, ate Dan's food, talked about their work and then left. Kept his mask on the whole time. The only thing was, he had actually left Dan a can of beans, instead of taking one. Holiday spirit, Dan had thought. Nice guy, really, if you overlooked—well, everything.

But now Thanksgiving meant California. They had to fly, which Laurie had initially forgotten, because she had never flown to California for Thanksgiving before. That first year, they were stuck at home the day before trying to get last-minute tickets, and Dan had wished Dr. Manhattan never existed, not for the first time. It seemed like every five minutes he had reason to wish Dr. Manhattan never existed. Laurie was no help, either, insisting that they could just skip it. It was all very well for her, she didn't want to see her mother, but Dan was _not_ going to be the one who tore their family to pieces by not getting Laurie to California on time.

Since then it had been better. At least, they made travel plans ahead of time. But Thanksgiving was still the same, Laurie trading passive aggressive snipes with Sally from across the table, Sally pretending not to notice and reminiscing about the old days. Dan couldn't count how many times he had heard her sigh a little, in her light, affected manner, and say, "Just me and poor Byron left, now. Just an old shriveled woman on death's door and Byron, well, he's such a troubled man."

This was Laurie's cue to say "Mother, you're not shriveled," but she always refused. She was much more likely to go outside for a cigarette, leaving Dan to stammer out compliments while Sally eyed him in a way that he supposed must be her default look for young men.

This year, Laurie was out smoking just twenty minutes into the dinner, which meant there was no one to distract Sally.

"So," she said, turning to Dan. "I take it my daughter's been behaving herself?"

This was what Dan hated. Sally always seemed to ask him questions he was unable to reply to. Behaving herself by whose standards? he wanted to ask. Sally's? Probably not. But Laurie was behaving by her own standards, and Dan had long ago learned not to question that.

"She's lovely," he said.

"It must be hard for you," Sally said, "leaving your glamorous undercover life and coming all the way out here just to see me. I'm past my prime, you know. You should have seen me in the old days." Her eyes were focused on him sharply.

"Yes, I—I know," Dan said. "I did. I mean, I followed your career. Well, the Minutemen." He had mostly been interested in Hollis, of course, but he didn't say that. He also didn't mention that for a year he'd had a picture of the Silk Specter hung on his bathroom mirror. He'd been trying to forget about that fact; it seemed inappropriate to admit to Sally and certain death to admit to Laurie.

"Tell me, Daniel," Sally said. "Does my daughter satisfy you?"

"I—what?"

"You're a man, and she's a woman," Sally continued. "Does she satisfy you?"

"Um." Again, Dan wasn't sure what the right answer was. Saying "yes" seemed too strange. He didn't think Laurie would like him saying it, for one thing. But he couldn't say _no_. On the one hand, it wasn't true. And wasn't it sort of insulting to tell someone their daughter was bad at sex? But wasn't it also insulting to tell her she was _too_ good at sex—too much experience, type of thing? Dan felt a tiny twinge of panic.

"Laurie and I are—we're very happy," he said desperately. That seemed safe.

"I see," Sally said. She twirled one of her curls around her finger. "You're never... curious?"

"Curious?" Dan repeated slowly.

"About other women."

This one he definitely knew the answer to.

"No," he said. "I just want to be with Laurie."

"Hmm," Sally said. Her eyes flicked down, and then back up. She was looking him over. Dan felt self-conscious.

"You know," Sally said in a low voice, "I used to be quite a looker. Young men used to fall all over themselves for me.

Dan struggled for a response. "Yes," he said vaguely, wishing Laurie would come back.

"Criminals, too. Do you know..." She laughed to herself, a little ruefully. "Do you know, Captain Metropolis used to complain because he would arrest criminals and they would say—" She put on a deep voice. " 'I don't want you! I want Sally Jupiter!' He used to say I was actually making the crime problem worse. But most of them weren't bad boys at all, really. I didn't mind lingering a little while I was snapping the handcuffs on. They just wanted a nice moment before they went off to prison."

She looked at Dan sideways. He wasn't sure if she was really talking about the past or not. It sounded like she was, but she was looking at him very carefully, monitoring his reactions.

"Uh-huh," he said. Where was Laurie? She had probably finished her cigarette and started another one, he thought. She would do anything to stay out of her mother's way a little longer. It wasn't very considerate, he thought with a faint sense of annoyance that he knew he would completely forget about the second she came back in and touched his hair on the way back to her seat.

"Of course, by now my looks have faded," Sally said.

Back on familiar territory. Not comfortable, but familiar.

"No, they haven't," he said. "Not at all."

"You think so?"

"Of course," Dan said, looking towards the door hopefully.

"Do you think I could still attract young men, Daniel?"

"Sure," he said.

"So you find me attractive?"

"Yes, I—" Dan paused. This was heading somewhere that he wasn't sure he was prepared for.

Suddenly Sally was drawing close to him. Dan instinctively pulled back in surprise.

Sally pouted at him. "What?" she said. "Now you've changed your mind?"

"Uh," Dan said, his voice skewing upwards in panic. "No! Um, but—"

_But Laurie_. That was the "but". Except what would Laurie say if Dan upset her mother? What if he said no, and Sally got angry, and Laurie came back in and got angry that Dan had made Sally angry, and left him? Laurie left him alone with Sally because she knew Sally liked Dan, because he was nice and polite to her. He couldn't just tell her she wasn't attractive. That would be completely... Dan realized that, while he'd been panicking, Sally had been drawing near to him again. Now her dry lips pressed against his. Okay, this was definitely _not right_. Laurie would not like this at all. He would have to say something.

But the kiss continued. Alright, thought Dan, I'm going to draw back. Any second now, I'm going to draw back and apologize to Sally and she's just going to have to deal with that. Any time now.

Except before he could, he heard the door opening.


End file.
